They're Here!

Well yesterday we drove down to Essex to pick up the turkey babies.  Our new Maywick Gas brooder heated up the shed very quickly!  I'm thinking of spending the winter in there with the turkeys!

When I took the babies out of their boxes I noticed one looked like it had its foot caught under the cardboard separator, but it didn't.  it wasn't very well.  We had bought some poult saver from the breeders, which dissolves in the drinking water and looks like it is added proteins and vitamins to help give the babies a better start in life.

I got a syringe as well, so following the instructions, I tried to give the poorly baby some of the treated water.  Do you know how difficult it is to hold a wriggling poult in one hand, and try to get a syringe with a plastic straw on the end down the poults throat and into it's crop without any water going down the windpipe?  Not easy!

Anyway, the last time I checked on them last night at midnight, it didn't look at all good, and the poor little thing was dead this morning.  I know these things do happen and you do occasionally get a weak one.  The breeder always gives us a couple of extras free just in case, and mortality rates of 2% are quite acceptable, but its a shame that the one that died was one of the 12 bronze turkeys we got, rather than the white ones.

Anyway, today they are all up and running around, getting their little wing feathers, scratching and preening!  It still amazes me how they know to drink and eat and do all these other things without having a Mum to show them how to do it.

Can you imagine putting a new born human baby on the ground and expecting it to get on with it?

Here are their first photo's, with a photo of our new gas brooder!